Tatami Galaxy Episode #03

With two circles now behind him, our nameless lead must now find himself another road to pursue as we reboot once more.

What They SayAfter the campus cleanup crew confiscates his state-of-the-art bicycle, a college misfit trades his wheels for some wings in an attempt to become a human birdman. Why? To impress a girl, of course.

The Review!Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)After the second episode where it essentially reboots the show a bit but with some change and a sense of déjà vu for our nameless lead, I'm unsure of how I feel about this show. Sometimes going this route can be highly fascinating, especially when you get fans who want to break it down frame by frame and really work it over. Other times it can be really annoying and cause you to jump off of it easily as you can feel like you're never going to really get anywhere with it. For a lot of people, I suspect the third episode is a make or break piece for whether they'll continue on it with it or not.

With the first two circles dealt with, our lead has been rebooted into starting his college career again and this time deciding that bicycling will be his thing. His goal is of course the same in that it's all about finding the right girl to do these bike rides with and to have that young romance that will make his college days sparkle. And just like his previous circle experiences, Ozu is again at hand as a friend of the lead's who does nothing but cause trouble. Our nameless young man hasn't been doing so well in the circle and often can't keep up with everyone else who is all above and beyond into cycling, which has him feeling very left out from events. And that just leaves him spending his time with Ozu.

His cycling life goes horribly for a number of reasons and he's finally ready to chuck it all when he meets Akashi. She ends up recruiting him for the Team Birdman project in which a number of students are creating a flying vehicle that needs a weak and meek pilot that can handle things. With the potential for a love interest, but also feeling like he's been forced into things, our lead starts going through various training exercises in order to pilot the craft. Everything goes awry, but surprisingly, Ozu is pretty low key throughout this and ends up not being all that involved until the last few minutes of the episode where his role in the grand scheme of things is revealed. It's not a surprise but it was pleasant not having to listen to him for a good chunk of the episode. And when that's the saving grace of a show, you know you're in trouble.

In Summary:As our nameless lead says at one point, all of this was a wasted effort. He was referring to everything he did to train for his new role, but that also feels like what some of this episode is like. There's definitely an appeal for seeing the various configurations of life that they can put this guy through and the various circles he can be a part of, but the nuance of the show isn't shining through that strongly to highlight the changes and differences, if any, that show where the series really wants to go. I adore it from a visual perspective and how it approaches telling its story, but there's a lack of really compelling material here to make me want to keep coming back for more.